The firing of Adm. Lisa Franchetti continued a Trump administration purge of top military ranks that began Jan. 20 with the ouster of Adm. Linda Fagan as Coast Guard commandant.
Franchetti, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles "CQ" Brown, Air Force vice chief of staff Gen. James Slife and the judge advocates general of the Army, Navy and Air Force were all fired Feb. 21 in what critics dubbed a “Friday night massacre.”
While President Trump named retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Caine to replace Brown, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth offered no immediate replacement for Franchetti, saying only he was “requesting nominations” for her, Slife and the judge advocates.
Just days before she was relieved Franchetti visited Navy installations in New England, calling at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) and Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, and the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.
Franchetti’s 40-year Navy career opened when she received a commission in 1985 through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Northwestern University. The Navy had just ended its prohibition on women serving in sea duty seven years before.
Franchetti rose to a surface warfare officer while most female sailors still served on auxiliary vessels. Over the years She commanded the destroyer U.S.S. Ross, a destroyer squadron, two aircraft carrier strike groups, all naval forces in Korea and the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.
In November 2023 she was named chief of naval operations, the first woman to be named a full member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The command changes came with claims by Trump administration officials that during the Biden administration the military services had focused excessively on promoting diversity in the ranks. Some miltary commentators are reacting with alarm, perceving an effort to politicize the leadership.
In a statement Feb. 22, retired Rear Adm. Mike Smith, founder and president of the group National Security Leaders for America, warned that sweeping top commanders from office “will force current and future military leaders to consider whether following a lawful order today will get them fired by a future president, creating immense tension in the chain of command.”
